EPA to Add 16 New Chemicals to Toxic Release Inventory

By Johnny Kilroy on April 7, 2010 From Restoration campaign

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency wants to people to be informed about toxic chemicals released in their communities.

Tuesday, April 6, 2010 EPA announced that it is proposing to add to its Toxics Release Inventory list 16 new chemicals which “can reasonably be anticipated to cause cancer in humans.” 

The TRI was formed with the 1986 Emergency Planning and Community Right to Know Act (EPCRA), and already includes 650 types of chemicals from 22,000 facilities in the country.  The goal is to improve public knowledge of ambient toxics and waste management, and to focus government research in those areas. 

Latisha Petteway, EPA Press Officer, told TENTHMIL,

“Facilities that meet the EPCRA section 313 reporting requirements file annual reports of the releases and waste management quantities for each listed chemical for which they exceeded the reporting thresholds.”

Increasing public awareness of these toxins is a good thing.  How might this transparency measure affect public opinion, government regulation, and day to day business?  Reporting chemical releases, itself, is a time and monetary burden for industry (although it would probably create jobs).  Hypothetically, round condemnation of the proposed chemicals would have drastic repercussions for trade.  The 16 proposed chemicals represent a very broad spectrum of substances, which have myriad uses in our every day lives. 

But for now, industry need not worry.  Petteway says,

“Listing a chemical under EPCRA section 313 does not impose any regulatory restrictions on the manufacture, uses, or releases of the chemicals.” 


(Stream polluted by surface mining.  Photo:  Johnny Kilroy.)

 

New “Reportable” Chemicals


Listed below are the chemicals that EPA wants to add to the TRI list, and some of their common uses (why life may be inconceivable without them).

Isoprene.  A compound involved in coal burning.

Glycidol.  Used in the pharmaceutical industry and as a stabilizer of vinyl polymers, and as an additive to hydraulic fluids.  Over a decade ago, the Occupational Health and Safety Administration set an exposure limit on glycidol, at 150 milligrams/cubic meter.

1-Amino-2,4-dibromoanthraquinone (ADBAQ).  Textile dyes.

2,2-bis(Bromomethyl)-1,3-propanediol (BBMP).  Various flame retardants.

Furan.  Typically is derived from pine wood heated at high temperatures (1300 degrees F).

Methyl Eugenol.  Pesticide products and flavoring in foods.

o-Nitroanisole.  Pharmaceutical preparation.

Nitromethane.  Cleaning solvents, industrial degreasers, and superglues.

Phenolphthalein.  Long used in laxatives (and therefore practical jokes on roommates), as well as toys with disappearing inks. 

Tetrafluoroethylene.  Teflon and Fluon, when polymerized into polytetrafluoroethylene. 

Tetranitromethane.  Additive to diesel fuel.

Vinyl Fluoride.  Weather-resistant surfaces for commercial and residential buildings.

1, 8 and 1,6-Dinitropyrene, 6-Nitrochrysene  Found in diesel engine exhaust.

4-Nitropyrene.  An environmental carcinogen.


(Photo:  Supermac1961 via Flickr.)


Why were these chemicals chosen?  EPA said,

EPA reviewed the NTP RoC chemical profiles and supporting materials for each chemical being considered for listing on the TRI…EPA also reviewed available production and use information for each chemical to determine whether it is expected to be manufactured, processed, or otherwise used in quantities that would exceed TRI reporting thresholds.

Of the sixteen, the latter four are polycyclic aromatic compounds (PACs).  EPA states,

The PACs category is a category of special concern, because PACs are persistent, bioaccumulative, toxic (PBT) chemicals, and as such, they are likely to remain in the environment for a very long time, are not readily destroyed, and may build up or accumulate in body.

The idea is part of EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson’s greater plan to provide more information to communities about toxic chemicals.  Or could it be part of an insidious plot to kill jobs and prosperity?


America’s Conflicting Inner Monologue


Well here we go again.  The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency telling us what’s not safe, what’s harmful, what’s…carcinogenic.

You know what I use for environmental protectin’?  A compound bow.  That’s right, the swift and silent agency of death.  Keeps them nefarious type elements away from my land and chil’ens.  EPA, bah.  Shepherd’s got to tend his own flock, no?

 

Unfair Attacks on Industry?


EPA predicts that the TRI additions will impact 175 facilities, whose managers will have to file reports on the chemicals.  This will certainly not be taken well by industry, as with other recent EPA actions.

April 1, 2010, EPA released “comprehensive guidance” that could restrict mountaintop removal strip mining, by limiting the amount of toxic chemicals that can be dumped into sensitive Appalachian watersheds.  With good reason, too.

“Cancer clusters” in the Appalachian coalfields are a well documented phenomenon, directly related to the elevated levels of heavy metal contaminants in the water supply.  Sadly, it can afflict anyone in the area, including people who have never stepped foot in a mine.

Some critics were furiously flabbergasted by EPA’s decision last week, though, as coal is perceived as an absolute necessity to the regions that develop it.  Joe Manchin, Governor of West Virginia, said to West Virginia Metro News,

How can six states be held to another standard that 44 states are not?

How could EPA deign to protect the clean water future of the entire eastern U.S., by targeting the vein-polluting mono-cultural energy economy?  After all, keeping coal waste out of American watersheds would be like keeping heroine out of an addict’s blood.

 

Public Comment


There will be a 60-day public comment period on EPA’s recent additions to the TRI list. 

The citizenry must ensure that EPA isn’t acting prejudicially, and unfairly crusading after the coal, pharmaceutical, construction, biomass, pesticide, textile, fire-fighting, food, diesel fuel, cleaning and adhesives products, non-stick cookwares, Hollywood Hair Barbie, and chemically-induced-bowel-movement industries.

The agency also announced, Wednesday, April 7, 2010, that it will be restricting the use of pesticide phosphine fumigants, which are especially dangerous to children. 

Let us not forget what they tried to do to asbestos, and all the economic stimulus that it had created.  Jobs, people!  A paycheck from PLENCO certainly comes in handy to pay medical bills from mesothelioma (especially when insurance companies won’t cover them).

What’s the real job at hand here?  Environmental health, economic growth…both?  Well, first things first, we have to go and chip away at those big houses and trucks we can’t afford, and emergency room bills that aren’t covered.

We’ve all got jobs we’d like to do.  Hell, I’d like to be the reigning champ in the octagon.  But sometimes, we’ve got to “hop on the team, and come along for the big win.”  Right?

If the great free market calls upon the Environmental Protection Agency to loosen up its white collar, rolls up its sleeves, bifurcate its mandate, and dig in the good honest heartland soil, to sew the seeds that will sprout into good paying American jobs…so be it?

Actually…

“There are cost considerations for any regulation.  EPA prepares an economic analysis of the cost to industry and EPA of collecting the additional data.  Depending on the cost of the rule, additional regulatory assessments might be required,” said Petteway. 

However, when it comes to adding chemicals to the TRI,

“There is no statutory requirement within EPCRA section 313 that mandates consideration of economic impacts before listing a chemical.”


(“Who’s side are you on, son?  Don’t you love your country?”  Photo:  Warner Bro.s Pictures.)


Local Assertion Goes Farther than Federal Regulation in Some Areas

Here in the wonderful city of Eugene, Oregon, we do act kind of like adults when it comes to the environment.  We’ve got our own Right-to-Know laws for toxins, and they are even stricter than the federal government for reporting releases of toxics. 

Eugene law requires authenticated reports of the poundage toxics released, specially meticulous filings for materials shrouded in “trade-secret” status, routine audits, and that records be kept available in the Eugene Public Library.  The City Council appoints a seven person Toxics Board to enforce this law.  Payment for the implementation of this law is derived by the city from the polluters themselves; they pay fees as prescribed by the Toxics Board, and thereby internalize some of the environmental cost of their operations. 

The Eugene Weekly recently reported on the city’s wood treatment facility, run by J.H. Baxter, whose emissions caused breathing trouble for kids at the nearby Fairfield Elementary school.  J.H. Baxter, a California based company, failed to report to the Toxics Board the release of nearly 40,000 pounds of ammonia in 2008.


(The J.H. Baxter wood treatment facility is less than half a mile south of the Fairfield Elementary School in Eugene.  Image:  Google Earth.)


 

The state of Oregon (DEQ) has also pressured J.H. Baxter to reduce employees’ and the public’s exposure to toxic materials.

 

Action


Comments on the TRI additions will be taken,

1.  Online, http://www.regulations.gov
2.  Email, oei.docket@ epa.gov
3.  Mail, Office of Environmental Information (OEI) Docket, Environmental Protection Agency, Mail Code: 28221T, 1200 Pennsylvania Ave., NW, Washington, DC 20460.
4.  Hand Delivery, EPA Docket Center (EPA/DC), EPA West, Room 3334, 1301 Constitution Ave., NW., Washington, DC 20460. Such deliveries are only accepted during the Center’s normal hours of operation.

This was EPA to Add 16 New Chemicals to Toxic Release Inventory, an entry in our Restoration Campaign from April 7, 2010.

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